


Auld Lang Syne

by jencsi



Category: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-09
Updated: 2020-12-09
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:28:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27966050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jencsi/pseuds/jencsi
Summary: Happy Holidays
Relationships: Julie "Finn" Finlay/D.B. Russell
Comments: 1
Kudos: 8





	Auld Lang Syne

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ChangingbacktoBellamort500](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChangingbacktoBellamort500/gifts).



Christmas 2015- 

Smitten, that’s what he is with her. He can’t help but watch her as she moves around the living room, first enjoying the party, then helping him clean up. 

Everything about her was perfect, from the way she curled her hair, to the skirt and sweater she wore, to the way her cheeks glowed with some pinkish blush, how there was a shine to her lips from some sort of pink gloss. 

Right now he was infatuated with how she was kneeling on the floor in front of the tree, picking up pieces of silver tinsel that had fallen off it in the chaos of the party. She picked up each strand one by one and placed it back on the tree. Even though the party has ended and the holidays will now be over, she cares enough to try and savor any last minute ounce of joy this season brings her. 

As she works, she spots a wrapped gift tucked way back at the bottom of the tree close to the wall. 

“Oh no,” she sighs “DB someone forgot their gift.” 

“Uh oh,” he shares her misery “better look and see who it’s for.” 

She carefully maneuvers under the tree, tucking her skirt in against her legs donned with black tights, retrieves the present and slides back out. He’s reminded of the time she crawled under a raised house in the middle of the desert to retrieve a tool as evidence risking life and limb. He smiles at the memory. She flips the gift over several times in search of a name but doesn’t see one. 

“It’s blank,” she pouts, showing him the unmarked package. 

He stands in front of her, sipping tea from a mug and making a concerned face. In the midst of her pout, he sees a strand of tinsel in her hair, perched delicately amongst her curls. 

He pauses in his observation of her to examine the present for a name, feigning confusion for a moment then saying “here we go” 

She almost bumps her head against his as she leans forward to see how he found the tag and how she possibly could have missed it. When her eyes land on the sticker, she gapes at it then at him. 

“What did you do?” she asks, having spotted her own name written on the tag in his familiar scrawl. 

“Just a little something extra,” he explains smirking when she crosses her arms and gives him a look of mild annoyance. 

Nevertheless she accepts the gift, shuffles over to the closest couch and sinks onto it. He follows her, setting his tea mug down on the coffee table as he nods for her to open it. She starts peeling at the shiny paper, careful, unlike her carnage with her other presents today. She goes slow on purpose just to annoy him but it’s worth it. When she finally undoes the entire package, she’s met with a paperback book, one that’s rather disheveled and worn. She flips it over in search of a title or description. 

“The Thin Man” she reads the only title she finds “what’s this?” 

“A good old fashioned detective novel,” he explains. 

“All right,” she says not very impressed but grateful all the same “thanks” 

“I want to read it to you,” he continues. “Well I went to read it to you properly, see I started it in February but never got a chance to finish it.” 

And now it hits her. This has something to do with her coma. 

“You what?” she dares to ask somewhat terrified of the answer he will give. 

“It’s my favorite book,” he explains “when you were in the hospital, I started reading it to you, hoping maybe you’d hear it and wake up or just be annoyed with me and wake up, whatever it took to bring you back.” 

She hears his voice change from calm to emotional. 

“I never got to finish reading it to you because you woke up,” he concludes his tale now with a smile “you had therapy to do, you were hurting, but you were alive, and now I think you’d enjoy it better now that you’re okay again.” 

She eyes him, staring at how he folds his hands, nervous, still distraught over what happened to her. She thinks back to all those days spent in the hospital, aching to go home, struggling to walk again, to stop her hands from shaking, to drive and be able to do her job again. He was right there beside her. Holding her shaking hands. Squeezing her sore legs. Encouraging her to go slow but letting her know she would succeed and be herself again. She focuses on the book now and demands “Read it to me please?” 

“Now?” He asks, taken aback by her abruptness. 

She nods and hands him the book, settling back on the couch, tugging at the blanket that’s folded up on the back of the couch, pulling it down and wrapping herself in it. He settles back on the couch with the book opened, feeling her head come to rest on his shoulder, her curls tickling his neck. She snuggles and draws the blanket closer to her body, nestling under it, pulling the soft fabric all the way to her chin. Cozy and warm, she waits for him to start reading, feeling pulled by the glow of the multi colored lights on the tree and strung around the house, soothed by the smell of cinnamon and clove from the candles and leftover food scents. 

As he reads, she focuses on his voice and tries to follow the words on the page but her eyelids flutter in failed attempts to stay focused. When she hears him make distinct voices for the characters, some of the dialogue stands out to her. 

“The people who lie the most are nearly always the clumsiest at it, and they're easier to fool with lies than most people, too. You'd think they'd be on the look-out for lies, but they seem to be the very ones that will believe almost anything at all.”

She scrunches her face as she whispers to him “That guy sounds like you” 

“That’s Nick, the main character,” Russell explains “Nora is his wife.” 

As Finn listens to Nick and Nora banter back and forth and can’t help but smile and think of how familiar this all sounds.

“I'll give you your Christmas present now if you'll give me mine."  
I shook my head. "At breakfast."  
"But it's Christmas now."  
"Breakfast."  
"Whatever you're giving me," she said, "I hope I don't like it."  
"You'll have to keep them anyway, because the man at the Aquarium said he positively wouldn't take them back.”

“It’s us,” she finally concludes “that’s why it’s your favorite, that’s why you read it to me.” 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he teases but she knows deep down this was his plan all along. 

Smitten, she rubs her cheek against his shoulder, savoring the feel of the flannel fabric against her skin as she demands “Keep going” 

He pauses to press a kiss to her forehead, lingering over that scar that juts across it from the attack, just one of many reminders of that fateful day. When he continues reading, his voice lowers and she feels even closer to falling asleep, arms wrapped around his, soothed, loved, safe. She can’t bear to fall asleep and miss any second of this story. She forces herself to stay awake, wrapping both her arms around his and leaning against him as he reads. 

This is a far cry from the last time he read this novel out loud, he can’t help but think as she moves beside him every few minutes or so, searching for a new comfortable position, rubbing her cheek against his shoulder, tugging at the blankets that are slipping off her body, doing some action that distracts him from reading because every move she makes is beautiful. Every time he reads this story he thinks of her. Having read the book before she was even part of his life was a testament to that. Her powerful force encapsulated in a novel set in the thirties and acted before either of them were alive. But here it was, in black and grey, on print and online, thousands of copies for the world to discover. A part of him felt that they were immortalized this way, despite her close call with death and his in the past, one day, when they were both long gone, these words would live on and in some strange way, so would they. 

It comforted him in the darkest hours spent at her bedside from February to May. If she absolutely had to leave him, at least he still had the book. Of course nothing topped her. She was energy wrapped in wit and smothered in snark. Even Nora Charles could not best her in conversation. He often imagined the fictional versions of themselves duking it out in a battle of wit and deductions, presiding over an active case. What would Nick do? What would Nora say? Those fantasies helped him cope with her entrapment in the coma and helped him manage his fears of losing her. 

But, like the sting of Nora’s wit, she came back to him, swinging, fighting, shocking life back into his numb heart just as hers started beating faster than it had in months. The book had been in his lap and flung onto the floor when she started coding, then coming back to life and since forgotten as he helped her recover. Now, all of that seemed so far away as she nestled beside him, like a bad dream. The song said only fools rush in, but he was the fool for not doing something sooner. 

When she could not stop yawning, he insisted she go upstairs to bed and they would finish reading later but she protested with a pout and crossed her arms. He knew better, savoring the book over the next few days would give them an excuse to cuddle up together, so in typical Nick Charles fashion, he soothed her with “Listen, darling, tomorrow I'll buy you a whole lot of detective stories, but don't worry your pretty little head over mysteries tonight.” 

Her eye roll and subsequent slouching off the couch wrapped in the blanket as she shuffled upstairs, looking back at him to see if he was following her, pouting when she saw that he wasn’t at first, was the perfect storm of quirks that could knock him down and bring him to his knees. He was at her mercy and there was no better place to be.


End file.
